NA-PAW MEDIA RELEASE RE AMHERST ISLAND

The North American Platform Against Wind Power today announced its profound objection to the Ontario Provincial approval of the Amherst Island wind turbine project of 26 turbines (Windlectric/Algonquin Power), that since its conception, has long garnered international interest and concern. Amherst, well known for its abundance of migratory bird and bat life, is also a Canadian recognized historic centre, a centre for bird tourism, and boasts a windswept coastline with more shoreline than all of the 1,000 Islands combined. Of international note: Amherst Island is an Important Bird Area of Global Significance on the Atlantic Migratory Flyway, and is home to 34 species at risk, including the Blanding’s Turtle. Wintering hawks and owls attract global visitors.

The Island includes 400 hectares of Provincially Significant Coastal Wetlands. “To place an industrial wind factory here,” says Sherri Lange of NA-PAW, “is nothing short of astonishing, and an affront to the Canadian way of viewing and preserving natural treasures. Although NA-PAW objects to all industrial wind facilities that do nothing to provide clean or “green” sources of energy, there is something deeply delusional to think that the public will not completely revolt over yet another disaster like nearby Wolfe Island.” (The Amherst Island turbines will be 100 feet taller than those at Wolfe Island.)

NA-PAW indicated that the machines are now significantly taller and more menacing to bird and bat life. Mortality counts are performed by developers, sometimes carried out on their behalf by companies such as Stantec, or specialists such as ornithologist Dr. Paul Kelinger (who routinely represents wind developers around the world); but these appear to have direct interests in providing neutral or benign reports. Jim Wiegand, a wildlife biologist from California, has studied the count areas and indicates that areas searched are routinely small radii, about 50 meters, while a vast majority of bird and bat carcasses are catapulted 90% further, and leaving scavenged wildlife vastly uncounted. Incredibly, many wind projects are slated for extremely sensitive high density prime bird and bat regions. Adds NA-PAW, “It is time to recognize that this former emblem of the “greening: of North America is actually a symbol of death and corruption.”

International condemnation of the project continues to mount: groups from the US, Spain, Denmark and others, have promised to sign on to Open Letters and petition the Ontario government to completely “terminate” the Windlectric turbine project.

Early protesters of the project are Save the Eagles International, SOAR (Save our Allegheny Ridges), other Eagle and bird protection agencies, the Great Lakes Wind Truth Groups, USA and Canada, who have successfully prevented several wind projects from entering the Great Lakes, and a large number of other individuals and agencies who are involved in land and natural resources protection, as well as the protection of human health.

Adds Lange, “It appears that Canada is embarrassingly not keeping up with international research and findings on wind power, with the Senate Hearings on Wind Power in AU, nor the recent and extremely clear evidence of the effects of ILFN on human health, nor the accumulation of bird and bat mortality that now is estimated at 30 to 39 million per year in the US alone. It is time to move the problems of wind power known for some time internationally, and also acknowledge the wind industry’s dismal performance. “It is time to add full light to the hugely ironic and morally vacant platform on which the industry has created its profits.”
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